Sunday, August 27, 2006
Exec asks court to order retake of Test 5 in nursing board exams
MANILA -- A former publicist of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has asked the Court of Appeals (CA) to invalidate the oath taking of new nurses and direct the retake of Test 5 in the anomaly-tainted June 11 and 12 nurses licensure examinations.
The plea contradicts the position of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) and the Board of Nursing.
In a petition, Dante Ang, chairman of the Commission on Filipino Overseas (COF), asked the CA that he be allowed to intervene in the legal controversy brought about by the alleged leakage in the nursing board exam.
The COF is the lead agency of the Presidential Task Force on National Licensure Examination for Nurses in the Philippines, which was created by Malacañang through Executive Order (EO) 550 to look into the leakage during the exams.
Ang is the head of the task force, while the PRC is one of the agencies under it.
At the same time, Ang asked the appellate court to order a retake of Test 5 of the exam for being marred with fraud, a move, which was contested by the PRC and the board.
"The timid resolution of the respondents does not purge the entire exam of the taint that tarred it nor does it restores the integrity of the whole test and much less does it redeem the tarnished reputation of the country the world over as the source of professionally competent nurses," he said in a petition filed by his lawyer Eddie Tamondong.
Ang sought to intervene in the petition filed by the group led by Rene Luis Tadle, president of the faculty of the University of Sto. Tomas (UST) College of Nursing, which also called for the suspension of the oath taking of nursing board passers pending the investigation on the leakage.
He said the PRC and the Board, instead of invalidating the results of the nursing test because of the fraud and serious flaw that attended it, and ordering the retaking of two subject questions on which were leaked to an undetermined number of examinees, proceeded to adopt and pass assailed Resolution 31 that merely invalidated and excluded 20 items from Test III and directed the recomputation of Test 5.
"Considering that a leakage in Test III (medical/surgical nursing) and Test V (neuro-psychiatric nursing) has been established to have occurred in the June 11 and 12, 2006 nursing examination given and conducted by the respondents, the results of examination is tainted with fraud and cannot be a valid basis for determining who passed and did not pass the examination and for the administration of oath for those who supposed passed," he said.
Ang said the PRC's decision allowing the new nurses, belonging from the provinces, to take their oath "was evidently to preempt, as it were, all other official acts and render moot whatever findings and recommendations they may come up with."
"The proclamation and publication by the respondents of the names of the examinees who have purportedly passed the June 2006 nursing test was without legitimate basis and therefore invalid. Invalid as well for the same reason are the oaths administered or caused to be administered by the respondent PRC on the examinees it considered to have passed the subject examination," he said.
The CA earlier issued a 60-day temporary restraining order (TRO) against the new nurses from taking their oath, but the PRC continued allowing them to do so, prompting petitioners to file a supplemental motion seeking to invalidate the oath-taking, pending the court's resolution of the licensure exam leakage controversy.
Tadle said after receiving a copy of their petition with the CA, the PRC issued MO 2006-02 directing their regional officers to administer the oath taking of those who passed the exam in their respective provinces.
In the past, the PRC has always administered mass oath-takings for all successful examinees, he said.
The petitioners said the local nursing associations confirmed that oath-taking ceremonies were conducted in the provinces and that some of them were also featured in news programs.
The acts of the respondents, they said, would show intention to "slam the door on any judicial inquiry into the actuations of the PRC."
"Obviously, PRC issued the MO to defeat the rule of law and render moot and academic the petition filed by petitioners. The court is amply empowered to crash through such lawless barrier in order to maintain the rule of law," the group said.
Aside from the academe, other petitioners include Earl Francis Sumile, president of the League of Concerned Nurses, and Michael Angelo Brant, president Binuklod na Samahan ng mga Student Nurses.
In their original petition, the group asked for the suspension of the oath taking of new nurses, which was to take place last August 22, pending the results of an investigation regarding the leakage.
The CA has set a hearing for preliminary injunction on September 14 at 2 p.m. at the Paras Hall of the CA. (ECV/Sunnex)
(August 27, 2006 issue)
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